Gas turbine engines are used to power aircraft, watercraft, power generators, and the like. Gas turbine engines typically include a compressor, a combustor, and a turbine. The compressor compresses air drawn into the engine and delivers high-pressure air to the combustor. In the combustor, a mixture including fuel and the high-pressure air is ignited. Products of the combustion reaction in the combustor are directed into the turbine where work is extracted to drive the compressor and, sometimes, an output shaft. Leftover combustion products are exhausted out of the turbine and may provide thrust in some applications.
In some engines, the combustor includes a wave rotor combustor that burns fuel and high-pressure air and discharges combustion products to the turbine to drive rotation of the turbine. Typical wave rotor combustors include an inlet plate, an outlet plate spaced apart from the inlet plate along a central axis of the wave rotor combustor, and a rotor drum positioned between the plates. The inlet plate provides an inlet port through which a flow of air and fuel pass into rotor passages formed in the rotor drum. The rotor drum receives and combusts the fuel-air mixture to produce hot high-pressure products as the rotor drum rotates about the central axis. The outlet plate provides an outlet port for the hot high-pressure products to exit the wave rotor combustor.